La Canada Holds On to Beat Servite, 57-55

Philip Anderson and Blake Wallace looked like mirror images Friday night.

Anderson, a 6-foot-8 senior forward for the La Canada boys’ basketball team, was matched against Wallace, a 6-8 junior forward for Anaheim Servite, in a Southern Section Division III-AA second-round game at La Canada.

Both came into the game leading their teams in scoring, rebounding and three-point shooting.

But Anderson had a distinct advantage even before tipping off against Wallace. Not that he is necessarily a better shooter, ball-handler or shot-blocker, but he has more places to turn for offensive help.

Anderson had five points and one rebound before fouling out early in the fourth quarter, but the third-seeded Spartans hung on for a 57-55 victory over Servite.

Rhett Anderson had 17 points and brothers Abe and Adam Malik came off the bench to add 12 and 11 points, respectively, for La Canada.

“They stepped up so big for us,” Philip Anderson said of the Malik brothers. “I couldn’t get over the fact that, as I walked off the court, we were going down. I trusted our guys and they stepped up.”

Wallace finished with 32 points and nine rebounds, but the Friars struggled to produce elsewhere, a problem that has plagued them all season. Servite led, 21-5, with 58 seconds left in the first quarter when Wallace made a three-point shot. La Canada closed to within 22-9 at the end of the first period and 28-24 by halftime.

“I feel a big duty to be the man around here,” Wallace said. “I really like the supporting cast this year, but it really hurts to lose like this.”

La Canada (27-1) has lost in the section final three times since winning the Division III-A championship in 1992. Coach Tom Hofman, in his 19th season at the school, said he believed his current group might have the chemistry to return to the title game on March 5 at the Arrowhead Pond.

A key to the Spartans’ success is Anderson, who not only averages 16 points and eight rebounds but also draws opposing post players out of the key to open the lane for teammates. Like Wallace, he’s also effective inside and handles the ball well in transition.

“On most any other team, he would be scoring a lot more points,” Hofman said. “But we’re real balanced. This is probably as much depth as I’ve had.”

Anderson is also a smart player. He signed with Lehigh, a Division I-AA college in Bethlehem, Pa., where he plans to major in engineering. Lehigh plays in the Patriot League with such other well-regarded institutions as Army, Navy, Colgate and Holy Cross.

“It’s a very comfortable situation,” said Hofman, whose son, Billy, is a sophomore guard at Cal Poly Pomona. “They’re real excited to have Philip.”

Wallace is expected to be one of the Southland’s top recruits over the next nine months. He has already received scholarship offers from California and Hawaii. He averaged 20 points and 10 rebounds for the Friars, who finished 14-14 and won only one game in Serra League play for the second consecutive season.

Coach Gary McKnight, whose Santa Ana Mater Dei team is seeded No. 1 in Division II-A, considered Wallace one of the top five players in the league.

“The first game against us he probably played better than the second game,” said McKnight, whose Monarchs beat the host Friars by 20 on Jan. 14 and by 22 last week at Concordia University. “The second time around, we didn’t have to guard some of the other guys like we guarded him.”

Wallace received more attention from opponents this season because he’s the only returning starter from a team that went 20-10 and went to the Division III-AA semifinals last year.

Wallace also averaged 20 points last season but took fewer shots. Coach Brian Kenney would like to see his big man work on getting others more involved in the offense.

“He doesn’t pass up many shots,” Kenney said. “It ends up being the Michael Jordan syndrome, where everybody sits around and wonders, ‘What’s Blake going to do next?’ ”